At the end of a week during which the Ebola virus consumed public health agendas, spooked markets and secured its status as a G7 issue, those managing the response to the disease scrambled to address public fears about its spread.

Operation Impact, Canada’s bombing campaign against Islamic State, could eventually lead to an Afghan-style mission to train the Iraqi army, but it’s an open question whether the Harper government will commit to such a venture. The country’s top military commander, Gen. Tom Lawson, told media in a briefing today that bolstering Iraqi forces is the likely next phase of the U.S.-led coalition’s effort and was discussed among military brass in Washington this week. Lawson was joined by Brig.-Gen. Michael Rouleau from the Canadian Special Operations Forces Command (SOFCOM) and Lt.-Gen. Jon Vance, the head of Canadian Joint Operations Command (CJOC.). They also said Canada’s combat mission in Iraq could last beyond six months. Lawson called the mission “difficult” against a “barbarous opponent.”

Canada is donating $8 million to a UNICEF effort to meet the education and protection needs of Iraqi children. International Development Minister Christian Paradis told a news conference today the No Lost Generation initiative will help up to 200,000 children whose lives have been disrupted by conflict. Paradis says the money will help keep the children in school and provide the catch-up education many of them will need. UNICEF Canada says the government money comes on top of $1.7 million donated by ordinary Canadians to support relief efforts in Iraq.

In a notable bit of pre-election positioning, Prime Minister Stephen Harper said in Sault Ste. Marie today that he is concerned his own federal bureaucracy is trying to bring back the long gun registry “through the back door.” Harper courted gun owners and anglers today with a carefully stage-managed question and answer session with invited representatives of the Ontario Federation of Anglers and Hunters. “I don’t want to feed paranoia, but as prime minister I can tell you I share the frustrations of our caucus members,” said Harper, before alluding to “bureaucratic initiatives that we think are effectively trying to put the long gun registry back in through the back door.”

In James Munson’s Drilldown: Canada’s oil and gas hubs chime in on the oil price drop and all your other resource politics news.

In iPolitics Health Week, Wayne Kondro asks, “Is there even an iota of difference between pulling the plug on a ventilator and administering life-ending medication?”

Internationally:

An apparent breakthrough in the effort to free 200 Nigerian schoolgirls captured by the Islamist militant group Boko Haram. The Nigerian government says it has sealed a ceasefire with Boko Haram and is negotiating the release of the girls, who were kidnapped in April. Government spokesman Mike Omeri told a news conference today that Boko Haram negotiators “assured that the schoolgirls and all other people in their captivity are all alive and well.” He confirmed there had been direct negotiations this week about the release of the abducted girls, who were taken from the northeastern town of Chibok six months ago, prompting a worldwide outcry, including the #BringBackOurGirls social media campaign. The purported deal comes as Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan prepares to launch a re-election bid.

In the home stretch of the U.S. midterm campaign, fears that Ebola could spread more widely in America have roiled an election narrative that’s already taken numerous unexpected twists, putting candidates in a reactive mode at a time when they had hoped to deliver their closing pitches. “An ABC News/Washington Post poll conducted this month found that the economy was still the leading issue voters said would determine their vote for Congress,” the L.A. Times reports. “But the same survey found that nearly two-thirds of Americans were concerned about the possibility of an Ebola epidemic in the United States, and the dominance of the story on cable news threatened to crowd the debate with voting already underway in many states.”

In “Fear Canada, not Mexico,” an eyebrow-elevating feature in Politico Magazine, senior writer Garrett Graff surmises all that Washington fearmongering about Islamic State sleeper agents sneaking across the U.S. southern border is misguided. “While there is a good chance that ISIL fighters will try to enter the United States, there’s almost no chance that they’ll do it by sneaking across the Mexican border,” writes Graff. “Instead, the United States has much more to fear from Canada.”

Our friend Susan Delacourt at the Toronto Star has a thoughtful piece about the federal response to Ebola. The lead: “’If you’re not worried about Ebola, you’re not paying attention,’ a former premier now working in the financial sector said to me this week while we were queuing to board a flight from Toronto to Ottawa.”